ABSTRACT
This chapter is an effort to understand how the emotion of “fear” is socially constructed, formed, and ritualized in the Isaki Amman Cult, which exists in the southern region of Tamil Nadu, South India. Villu paatu (Bow song) is an important performing folk art form that is performed in most of the folk religious celebrations in the southern regions of Tamil Nadu. The origin myth of Isaki Amman, which is repeatedly performed through traditional media such as villu paatu in order to disseminate or educate the people, belongs to the particular socio-culture relating to the goddesses. Many sociologists have also argued that the social construction of the body differs from the medical construction in so far as it positions the body at the center of human interaction, i.e., the body is seen as the existential basis of human interaction within given social, political, economic, cultural and environmental conditions.
